Which Careers Are Best For Paying Off Student Debt

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Education is the primary for most of us to get a good career start in life. But it does come at a cost and unless we are lucky enough to have a wealthy family or a full scholarship then it can be a very costly exercise. So most often we need to take out student loans to pay for tuition and living costs, and the expectation is that we would pay this back over our working life, and the obvious answer is, get a high paying job that will allow easy and comfortable repayments, however there are other ways and other types of jobs that offer alternative methods of repayment, such as student loan forgiveness, the first few of our examples are this type.

There are other ways and other types of jobs that offer alternative methods of repaying your student debt, student loan forgiveness, the first of a few of our examples are this type.

Teaching

Teaching is a career profession where you can obtain student loan forgiveness providing that you meet the eligibility criteria. You can have up to $17,500 of your debt wiped off due to service as a teacher, and you must complete five consecutive, full-time years as a classroom-based school teacher.

Public Service

There is a more general public service student loan forgiveness scheme but the terms and conditions are a little different from the specific teaching scheme. For a start you need to have worked for ten years rather than the five you need to complete when teaching, this is a long time and you should consider that the roles you would occupy are lower paid than the average graduate salary, this is why they qualify for the scheme. So you should consider how much loan you have to be written off against any potential salary lost by taking the offered salary. Other jobs can be used to get loan forgiveness, such as some medial roles but this is quite limited.

The Military

Entering the military allows for many to have their college education paid for directly by the military, giving a free ride, in a sense from the start to the end of your degree, however, this does mean you need to pledge several years service following graduation. Also if you start your service after you have already completed college then you may still have student loan debts hanging over you and President Trump recently eliminated student debt for disabled vets which is not how you would plan to rid yourself of student debt, but it’s handy to know.

Working Abroad

You can always consider looking to work abroad, this can be done in two different ways to help pay off student debt. Firstly, if you go to live and work in a country where the cost of living is lower and save up for a few years you might easily be able to come back and pay off the debt. The second option is a little bit more severe, you could avoid paying back your loan entirely, but to do this you would need to leave without ever planning to return to the USA, which I’m sure you can agree is an extreme measure in anyone’s book.